While Hugo Ekitike’s red owns grabbed all the emphasis, there was a minute in Liverpool’s 2-1 League Mug triumph over Southampton that would most noticeably have been far more worrisome for Arne Slot.
Amidst all the transfer enterprises of Liverpool’s irritatingly busy summer season, the £26million procurement of Giovanni Leoni from Parma was one of the less-heralded purchases.
The 6’5″ Italian was staked out as a “great coup” for Liverpool by Italian football legend Arrigo Sacchi, and for 81 minutes, the 18-year-archaic was one of the ideal players on the bazaar.
Nobody owned a much more detailed pass honesty, standoffish Zero.6 Wataru Endo supplied more defensive payments, and the number of times he was dribbled past was a assuring most noticeably no. The future of the centre-ago determine glanced instead glimmering, until it wasn’t.
Leoni supplied a tackle late on, and as he dropped to the progression, he quaked his knee. Slot claimed the club crucial an MRI previously reviewing how burly it was, but there are early pointers it is an ACL gash.
While the medical professionals sprinted their tests, the player’s enforced lack owns glistened a spotlight on what can be a compact hole in Liverpool’s remarkable armour. The thermal exhaust port of the Anfield Fatality Celeb.
With Trent Alexander-Arnold disowning for Madrid and Jarrel Quansah to Bayer Leverkusen, Liverpool conveniently appearance irritatingly brief at the ago.
The secure pairing of Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate are among the ideal in the league, but behind them, there is a concerning scarcity of deepness for a club that spent £420million this summer season.
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Joe Gomez is the first ago-upwards, but he glanced implausible against Southampton, and there’s a sense that if he were a optimal-level Premier League centre-ago, he can effortlessly have shifted on by now in lookout of secure minutes.
The standoffish other centre-ago on Liverpool’s reserves is Rhys Williams, that owns supplied merely 9 Premier League glimpses – all in the 2020/21 period – and spent last period on resources at League 2 Morecambe, that were relegated.
The outcome is that Liverpool’s the majority of showing piece of transfer enterprises can effortlessly be one that did not come off: the signing of Marc Guehi.
Liverpool were linked with the Crystal Royal abode skipper all summer season but opted to defer, desiring for a more favourable price. The outcome was Guehi’s slide being robbed at the last minutes, disowning Liverpool without a substitute.
It was a inexplicable methodology from an or else profoundly effortlessly-sprinted club. Of course, they can not have forecasted Leoni’s injury, but their deepness was strongly lacking contrasted to their opponents.
Tool kit have Cristhian Mosquera and Piero Hincapie as ago-ups to William Saliba and Gabriel. At a push, Riccardo Calafiori, Jurrien Timber and Ben White can in addition fill in.
Manchester Metropolis have Ruben Dias, John Rocks, Nathan Ake, Abdukodir Khusanov and Josko Gvardiol, that can all dabble centrally. Chelsea have an wide range of players for the pose, with eight recourses on the reserves that can dabble centre-ago if crucial.
It is in addition impossible to ignore that Van Dijk is not soliciting any type of youthful. Aside from contractor procedure to recover rid of an appendix, his standoffish major injury pre-Liverpool was an ankle injury that preserved him out for 232 days.
Because going ago from a cruciate tendon gash in 2021, he owns owned knee top priorities and a hamstring perplexity that have preserved him out. At 34, also if his oomph of dabble conducts not count heavily on sprints, these compact injuries show up more oftentimes and if the captain picks upwards any type of knock in the next couple of weeks, Liverpool conveniently appearance irritatingly introduced.
Konate’s contract instance is in addition a top priority. He glimpses earned to become the latest player to indication upwards with Save Transfer FC in Madrid, which can clarify why he owns not owned the ideal grabbing started to the period, and that interruption can be an also bigger part as the weeks go on.
The defensive top priorities are not restricted to centre-recommends either. Throwing away Alexander-Arnold theorized wasting one of their main artistic influences and the player that linked upwards ideal with Mohamed Salah. Salah’s morally arduous grabbing started to the year, summarized more by eyes than merely digits, owns evidently been pertained to forming a relationship with Jeremie Frimpong instead than the telepathic relationship he owned with Alexander-Arnold.
On the other side, Slot owns seemed frustrated with Milos Kerkez, replacing him in both the 22nd and 43rd minutes already this year.
After 5 galleries Liverpool have conceded 5 aims this period, posturing them joint nine for the worst defenses in the league, level with a Manchester Metropolis side that numerous have claimed is trickling aims. It took until the nine gameweek last period for Liverpool to hit that exact same tally.
With phobias that Giovanni Leoni can have decayed an ACL injury and can be out for numerous months, Liverpool are treading a tightrope. One knock to Konate or Van Dijk can derail this period, and most noticeably no matter how much Alexander Isak or Florian Wirtz are worth, they cannot fill the hole at centre-ago.
